Jake & Mimi

by Frank Baldwin

  We all sat there, stunned.

  “Touched you where?” Anne whispered.

  Eileen stood up against the bank of lockers. She motioned to Anne and me. “This is the brick wall,” she said. She had Anne hold one of her hands against the lockers, and she had me hold the other. “Tighter,” she told us. “So that I can’t move.” Then she had us each hook her feet with one of ours.

  “I was so helpless,” she said. “I couldn’t even kick. They could have done anything.”

  “What did they do?” I whispered.

  She sat back down on the changing bench. “The third boy,” she said, and then brushed her palm, once, across her sternum, closer to her neck than to the area of her shirt that covered her training bra.

  “That’s all he did?” said Bliss.

  “Then he put his hand downstairs.”

  We gasped.

  “Under your skirt?” Michelle asked, in awe.

  “No. On my belt. Like that was the magic spot. Then they all ran off.”

  We sat back and breathed. Eileen looked around at us again. “They didn’t know anything,” she said.

  We made her tell us again, made her go over every moment. “They could have done anything,” she was saying again when Miss Price, the gym teacher, walked in.

  “Girls, what are you doing?” she said sternly. “Come out here immediately.”

  We jumped up and walked out to the gym, Eileen in the middle of us, our protective hands on her hair, rubbing her arms, making sure the other girls could see that we’d been trusted with a secret. They begged us to tell them. Eileen nodded, so we told the story in fevered, whispered bits as Miss Price demonstrated the proper way for a girl to serve a volleyball.

  The “attack” held everyone’s imagination for a week, until Karen Glass told us she had French-kissed a delivery boy and was going to do it again that afternoon. A few days later Debbie Rose brought a condom to school and passed it around in study hall. And gradually the girls at All Grace forgot about Eileen’s ordeal.

  But I couldn’t forget. Months later I would still catch myself thinking about it in class. And not only at school. At night, too, alone in bed. For almost two years I kept picturing it, and I realize now that I saw the same image in my mind every time: Eileen’s small hands pinned tight to the redbrick wall, her feet hooked and separated.

  And now, years later, it comes back to me again, at ten to seven on a Friday evening, as I sit in a quiet pew at St. Mary’s Cathedral on Sixty-first Street and Fifth Avenue. The cathedral where I’ll be married two weeks from tomorrow. Mark and I meet tonight with Father Cronin, the priest who will marry us. We need him to approve the vows we’ve written for each other, and we want to hear the words he’s chosen to say in the last moments before he joins us as husband and wife.

  I run my hands along the smooth wooden back of the pew in front of me. It’s been so long since I’ve been to church. I’d forgotten how peaceful it can be. How quiet. None of the sounds of the rushing city. Just the whispered footsteps of the people who enter, kneel at the beginning of the deep red carpet leading to the altar, and then step quietly into one of the many pews. I look up at the high ceiling, at the exposed white columns, detailed with engravings of infants and angels. At the stained-glass windows, each depicting a different saint. It is beautiful, this church. And it has the rich smell that never leaves the memory. Wood, candles, cloth… and something deeper, something almost beyond words. Tradition. Faith.

  I look back at the Chapel of Forgiveness, the small alcove by the entrance where Father Cronin asked us to meet him. It is empty now, so I stand and walk to it, passing again the basin of holy water just inside the front door. I step into the alcove. Upon one wall is a wooden scroll.

  In your charity pray for the souls of the Paulist Fathers who have gone before us with the sign of faith.

  And then the names of the departed. Irish names, all of them. Mallon. O’Hearn. Ferry. McGrath. A hundred others. I think of the priests from my childhood, in the church in Greenwich. Father Ryan. Father Derry. Father Connolly. Gentle men, all of them.

  “You’re early, my child.”

  I start, and turn around.

  “Father Cronin. Hi.”

  He is a slight man with a thin, almost gaunt face saved by the red in his cheeks, and gentle but penetrating brown eyes. His white collar is immaculate against the black of his robe.

  “Mark should be here any minute,” I say.

  He nods kindly. On the wall across from the scroll is a crucifix. I’ve rarely been so close to one so large, so detailed. Beneath it, at kneeling level, are rows of candles.

  “Would you like to light one?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  He doesn’t have to know how long it’s been. I light the wooden stick from the one lit candle and touch it to the wick of another. The flame sputters and holds. I put the stick down in the tray. A few seconds later Father Cronin’s hand touches the small of my back.

  “And now you kneel,” he says gently.

  “Of course,” I say, flushing. I kneel and clasp my hands. The only sounds are our breathing and the rustle of his robe.

  “Father Cronin?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have doubts.”

  I hear the front door of the church open, and I turn quickly and look toward it. It isn’t Mark.

  “Speak freely, Mimi.”

  “I’ve been tempted.”

  He doesn’t answer for a few seconds. I watch the candle’s dancing flame.

  “What else?”

  I don’t dare lift my eyes from the candle to the crucifix.

  “That’s all.”

  Father Cronin kneels beside me. The sleeve of his robe touches my bare arm.

  “We are all tempted, Mimi. Fidelity would mean nothing without temptation. Faith would mean nothing.”

  “How do I know, Father? If I’m strong enough? To resist.”

  “Do you want to resist?”

  I pause.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will. Each one of us has strength we don’t even know. It arises out of faith. When you need it, it will serve you. Now rise, my child.”

  I stand to see Mark in the church doorway, looking around. He sees us and waves.

  “Sorry I’m late, Father Cronin,” he says, walking into the alcove. He kisses my forehead. “What did I miss?”

  “The lighting of a candle,” says Father Cronin.

  • • •

  She wears a little black dress; her legs, beneath the table, are bare and crossed.

  “You’ve had girlfriends,” she says, her eyes on mine.

  “Sure.”

  “Then you’ve had that moment when you knew.”

  Her black hair shines in the low light of the bar.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” I say.

  She has let the shawl slip off her delicate shoulders, and when she leans toward me, her breasts press against the table’s edge.

  “Scott was standing at the stereo last Friday night. Our third date, right? He was going through the CDs, pulling one out, putting it back in. I was watching him, and suddenly I knew. I can’t tell you why, but I knew.”

  “That you were done with him.”

  “Yes. That I would get through the evening, and that would be it. And just as I was sitting there on the couch, realizing this, the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, and it was you.”

  Elise leans back as the old bartender comes with our drinks, a vodka and tonic for her and a pint for me. She takes the lime in her fingers, runs it along the edge of the glass, then squeezes it into the middle and drops it in. As she raises her glass, the bracelets on her arm slide down to her elbow.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” she says.

  I touch her glass, and we drink.

  It is Friday night at 9:30 and we sit in a small booth at Lessons, on 112th Street and Broadway. We are the only customers in the place. She takes a sip, and I watch her throat shiver as
it goes down.

  “You said it was a long story, Jake. Why you picked that night to come back.”

  “It isn’t, really. I was just thinking about my past.”

  She looks down at her hands and then back up at me, her dark eyes searching.

  “Okay,” I say. “It was a year to the day that my grandfather died.”

  She takes this in, her eyes deepening. “I like that,” she says.

  We sit quietly for a while. Beneath the table I let my knee drift to hers.

  “You’re a stewardess,” I say.

  Her lips part in surprise, but after a second, understanding dawns in her eyes.

  “Clete the doorman,” she says. “Teller of secrets. Actually, I’m a graduate student. That’s why we get to live in Columbia housing. Sasha and Tracy are stewardesses. Flight attendants, to you.” Her knee presses against mine now.

  “Where are they tonight?” I ask.

  “Sasha’s in Alaska,” she says, then pauses. She takes the swizzle stick, pushes the lime to the bottom of her drink, and pins it there. Her eyes look straight into mine. “And Tracy is somewhere over the Pacific.”

  I slide out of the booth and offer her my hand. She takes it and stands, and we walk to the door and out onto Broadway. The wind is up and she holds the shawl tight to her neck. We walk to the corner, and then I spin her and back her gently against a streetlight. I carefully loosen her fingers from her shawl, and it falls away from her throat. I kiss her, hard, feeling her breasts against my chest as she comes into me. “Again,” she whispers, but I take her lean arms from my neck and walk off a few feet. I can feel it gathering inside me. All of it. I look up Broadway, into the night. In the distance I can just see the black gates of the university. I feel her hand in my back, small and warm. I close my eyes.

  “Hey,” she says gently.

  I turn. Her eyes are electric, trusting.

  “Don’t worry, Jake,” she says, her voice steady. “I saw it in you last Friday, and I’m not afraid. I like my princes dark.”

  “How dark?”

  She kisses my chest, then looks up again into my eyes.

  “Try me.”

  • • •

  “Mimi?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you…?”

  “Almost.”

  “Damn.”

  “It’s okay.”

  We lie in the dark, just afterward, Mark on his back and me against his chest.

  “I could —”

  “It was wonderful, Mark.” I trail my nails along his shoulder.

  “I mean it, Mimi.”

  “Shhh… Really, it was wonderful.” I kiss his neck.

  We lie quietly, the only sound the wind through the open window playing gently with the plastic shades. And now, far off, a car horn. How was it that I used to feel, in these moments? Completely happy. At peace.

  “Father Cronin was something, wasn’t he?” Mark says.

  “He was wonderful.”

  “I thought he’d go Latin on us, but those were some vows. Your mom will love them.”

  “She will.”

  “Two weeks, kid.”

  “I know.”

  My hand finds his and squeezes it. He runs his fingers softly through my hair, down to my neck and back again. And again. And again, until his strokes shorten and his breathing lengthens into sleep.

  Father Cronin’s words were beautiful. He talked about the journey of joined souls. About the power of union. Hearing them in that alcove, I’d felt so strong. And I know I’ll feel strong in two weeks, when I hear them again. I breathe deeply and let it out slowly. And then again. Faintly, from the apartment below, come the sounds of opera. Verdi, I think. It’s like listening to clouds.

  The sharp tones of the cell phone break the silence.

  “Ow!” says Mark.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say, getting up with a start, rubbing his shoulder where I’ve just dug into him. “I’ll get it.”

  I reach for the lamp and turn it on. I sit up. I take my robe from the chair and pull it around me. The ringing continues, insistent.

  “Jesus,” he says. “They can’t be serious. It’s eleven o’clock.”

  “They said to be ready for anything. Monday’s the fifteenth.”

  The phone is in my purse on the desk. I take the purse and walk quickly to the living room. I sit down on the couch. I take out the phone and hit the pulsing button.

  “Mimi Lessing.”

  “Mimi, it’s Jake.”

  The shiver starts in the small of my back and shoots up all through me. I pull the robe closed over my knees.

  “I’m here,” I say.

  “Do you have a pen?”

  “Yes,” I say, reaching for one.

  “Eight two three West One hundred and twentieth Street. On the corner of Amsterdam. Apartment fifty-three.”

  I write it down and then quickly fold the piece of paper in two.

  “We’re ready, Mimi.”

  I hang up the phone and put it back in my purse, along with the folded address. I close my eyes.

  “What’s wrong, kid?”

  Mark stands in front of me. His sleepy eyes are beautiful. Calm, trusting.

  “They need me,” I manage to say. “The Taylor account is blowing up.”

  “Bastards. What’s the guy make, two million a year? You’ll have him paying less than we do.” He sits down beside me and puts a warm hand on my hair.

  “Look what I’ve done,” I say, reaching into my purse for a tissue and pressing it to the small cut on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “Must have been some dream, Meems. You can tell me all about it when you get back. Did they say how long?”

  “No. You’ll stay here, won’t you?”

  “Where would I go?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Mimi, are you okay?”

  “Yes. It’s just… all catching up with me. I’d better shower,” I say, standing. He pulls me to him and nuzzles his face in my robe.

  “Be quick,” he says. “You know what’s waiting for you.”

  • • •

  Observe the time and fly from evil.

  Those are the words inscribed beneath the steeple clock of St. Mary’s Cathedral. I looked up at them just four hours ago, but now I ride through the darkness toward Jake Teller. The taxi turns into Central Park and speeds through the curving park streets, the lamps giving way to blackness as we wind beneath the overpass, the rare scent of trees reaching me through the open window. We emerge onto Amsterdam at Eighty-first Street and turn north, past the Natural History Museum, up through the familiar, busy Eighties, the sidewalks dotted with cafés and bars, and now into the quiet, foreign streets of the Nineties.

  I have on the dress I wore last Friday. The same one. And the same cobalt sweater. Before I took them from the closet, I walked to the bed to see if Mark was asleep. He was, his face in the crook of his arm, his breathing steady and peaceful.

  We are into the Hundreds, past 110th Street now. I’ve never been up this far. We pass the gates and grounds of a big university. Columbia, it must be.

  “Which side, miss?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Which side of the street?”

  “I don’t know. Either one.”

  At 120th Street he pulls over to the corner. He turns and looks back at me, his rough hand grabbing the divider.

  “In this part of town, dressed like that, you should know where you’re going. What’s the street address?”

  I look at the slip of paper in my lap.

  “Eight twenty-three.”

  He looks out through the front of the cab and points at the corner building.

  “I’ll wait till you’re inside.”

  “Thank you.”

  I pay him and step out of the cab. I stand in front of a giant prewar apartment building. The brick walkway is lit by a street-lamp shaped like an old gaslight. In the window of the lobby ahead of me I can see a uniformed
doorman. I pause. If I could just get a glass of wine somewhere or sit by myself for a few minutes. But the taxi waits at the curb, its engine running, the driver watching me. I walk to the lobby.

  “Good evening, miss,” says the doorman as he holds the door for me. He is a black man in his sixties, flecks of white in his short dark hair. Suddenly I realize that I don’t know what to say.

  “I’m here to…,” I start.

  He waits.

  “I’m going to apartment fifty-three. But please don’t call up.”

  “You must be Jake’s friend,” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “Jake told me you’d be coming. Just a minute.”

  He steps to a small table just inside the front door. He reaches down beside it and comes up with something. “He said to give this to you,” he says, and holds out a black pouch that is just a little smaller than my purse. It is made of soft felt and closed at the top by a gold drawstring.

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “Jake Teller, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jake come by this afternoon. He told me you would come tonight, and I should give you this.”

  “Thank you.”

  I take the pouch and walk to the elevator and press the button. But I feel dizzy, and the gray elevator doors in front of me start to blur. I feel the way I felt in art class, in the ninth grade, when I posed perfectly still for twenty minutes and then stood suddenly and tried to step off the platform.

  “Are you okay?” the doorman asks.

  “I’m sorry. Would it be all right if I sat down for a few minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  He takes my arm and guides me to the left, to a sitting area, a couch and chairs in front of a small fireplace. I ease down onto the brown leather couch.

  “There you are,” he says.

  “Thank you. I’m fine,” I say. “I just need a minute.”

  “Take as long as you want.”

  He steps away, and I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. A small fire burns in the fireplace, close enough that I feel its warmth on my legs. I look down at the black pouch. The felt is the softest material I’ve ever touched. I turn it in my hands. Through it I can feel three — no, four — hard objects.